Starstruck...

I just had a love affair with showbiz over the weekend, and we are not talking of starlets but we are talking about A-list showbiz personalities. My love affair with acting started when I was 9 years old. I even auditioned for “Ora Encantada” to be one of the child actors, now that you are aware of that trivia, at least we are in the same level as Celine Lopez, at least she could write and rich, so unlike me. Anyway, my first brush up with “TV guesting” was in this gag show called “O Sige!”, a high-ratiing show when channel 13 was lording the game. Me and friends happened to be in Wildlife Park while they were taping, so they asked us to make a “cameo”. Cast members of that defunct show are now respectable directors such as Lauren Dyogi and Jerry Lopez-Sineneng. I even dated a popular movie actor when I was college, if you call that a date, he happened to be cruising in Greenbelt, Makati and he picked me up as if I was a commercial sex worker.

Eventually, I landed a job in a magazine called Star Studio Magazine as a contributing photographer, a paparazzi at that. Not People or Hello! type of literature, but it is the highest-circulated title in this country and published by ABS-CBN. Every summer, I head to Boracay island to snap photos of “celebrities”, a loosely defined term and I have to ask my editor Jerome every now and then what composes celebrityhood. I have been doing this job for the past 4 years and so far, the pay compensates for the annual trek to the island. I get to meet TV and movie personalities and pretend that they are famous so that they would oblige for photo ops, although most of them are really famous. I feel sorry for them that they get swarmed and stalked by fans when they are supposed to take their “break” from work. Who says that fame is fun and enjoyable, at least I get to walk around Boracay without people paying attention to what I was eating or doing, even though I have my fair share of notoriety just like the celebrities. Showbiz is a 24/7 job, and they get paid with good money every second so one has to play the part. That sets them apart from your regular office workers, they don't punch in at 8 and punch out at 5, and they don't received nominal salary every 15th and 30th of the month, celebrities don’t have timecards thus they are exempted from breaks.

I get to befriend celebrities as well as their handlers because showbiz is a business that is based on what they can get from you and vice-versa. Honestly, these celebrities are regular people who happened to receive hefty paychecks just by waving their hands. Most of them are either talented or packaged by their studios to appear talented, but fans don’t get to see that, they still watch them or pay for movie tickets to be with them for 2 hours or so.

Actors get to be really popular, as a matter-of-fact, we even sent a movie actor who became popular as a thug in his films all the way to Malacanang, occupying the highest political seat in the land. Americans sent Ronald Reagan to the White House, and “A-nhould” Termonator is the incumbent mayor of California, at least we didn’t get behind the Americans with regards to our political beliefs.

Last Sunday, I attended the birthday party of a popular talent manager, Tito Dougs, and I thought it was going to be a quiet dinner because he told me it will be mostly amateur and collegiate basketball players and coaches. And yes, he was right about the “mostly” players part, because of the 70 plus people, most of them were basketball players, the remaining 20 or so guests were his “alagas” or talents, the most popular celebrities of Philippine showbiz. The most powerful of them all, Mother Lily of Regal Films, happened to sat beside me. If I was 13, I could have told Mother Lily that I was willing to be the proud wearer of her mythical “magic kamison” and show my non-existent crown jewels to the movie going public. For those who are clueless in Philippine showbiz, Mother Lily is a starmaker and a maverick, she knows what will sell to the public, and I will be the one to attest to that, I could enumerate the movies that she produced that I have seen, “Temptation Island”, “Underage”, “Katorse” “14 Going Steady”, “Bata Pa Si Sabel”, “Petrang Kabayo”, “Munting Kerubin”, “Mga Kwento Ni Lola Basyang”, Inday Bote”, “Inday Sa Balitaw”, “Rosa Mistica”and a lot more. Mother Lily will call her new discoveries as “Regal Babies”, and will launch them in a teeny-bopper films, today’s most respected actresses in the Philippines were products of Regal, Maricel Soriano, Dina Bonnevie, Snooky, Gretchen, Aiko, Carmina, Ruffa, Kris, name an actor, and most likely, Mother made them a household name. And when a teen star is ready to disrobe, Mother will ask her to wear Regal’s “magic kamison”, a white nightgown that once it gets wet, you could see everything, magical! Jennylyn Mercado is next in line to wear the “magic kamison”, at least Aiza Seguerra and Matet De Leon hibernated when their careers as child stars were dimming.

Other notables in Tito Doug’s party were Gretchen, Nadia, Richard, Lucy, Tita Annabel and Tito Eddie, Tsong Joey, Richard and Raymond with Georgina Wilson, John and his ex-wife Janice, Keanna Reeves and new BF Andrew Wolfe, and I made sure that after saying hi to everyone, I parked my ass in the farthest end of the restaurant to be able to eat without the glare of TV news cameras and photographers. It is hard to eat while you are being filmed, I am not kidding, I had my fair share during weddings and birthday parties, I detest seeing photos of me in unguarded moments, mouth open while trying to grab a bite. By the way, the party was held in a shabu-shabu restaurant, I did not get to eat anything because one has to prepare and cook his or her own food, I rather ogle at those basketball players, Tito Doug’s more interesting guests. I wish I was in a buffet and the players were up for grabs, I will help my self and will even ask for a doggie bag to take home some.

My phone just rang while writing this blog, it was Kris Aquino on the other line, she’s leaving for the U.S. with James Yap, and she just returned my call to say we are on with our deal, I will be her agent for her next project.

Showbiz… dream…believe…survive…Starstuck.